Product Description: You may have heard somewhere that Neil Gaiman's Sandman series consistedof cool, hip, edgy, smart comic books. And you may have thought, "What the helldoes that mean?" Enter A Game of You to confound the issue even more, while at the same time standing as a fine example of such a description. This is not an easy book. The characters are dense and unique, while their observations are, as always with Gaiman, refreshingly familiar. Then there's the plot, which grinds along like a coffee mill, in the process breaking down the two worlds of this series, that of the dream and that of the dreamer. Gaiman pushes these worlds to their very extremes--one is a fantasy world with talking animals, a missing princess, and a mysterious villain called the Cuckoo; the other is an urban microcosm inhabited by a drag queen, a punk lesbian couple, and a New York doll named Barbie. In almost every way this book sits at 180 degrees from the earlier four volumes of the Sandman series--although the less it seems to belong to the series, the more it shows its heart. --Jim Pascoe
Amazon.com Review: You may have heard somewhere that Neil Gaiman's Sandman series consisted of cool, hip, edgy, smart comic books. And you may have thought, "What the hell does that mean?" Enter A Game of You to confound the issue even more, while at the same time standing as a fine example of such a description. This is not an easy book. The characters are dense and unique, while their observations are, as always with Gaiman, refreshingly familiar. Then there's the plot, which grinds along like a coffee mill, in the process breaking down the two worlds of this series, that of the dream and that of the dreamer. Gaiman pushes these worlds to their very extremes--one is a fantasy world with talking animals, a missing princess, and a mysterious villain called the Cuckoo; the other is an urban microcosm inhabited by a drag queen, a punk lesbian couple, and a New York doll named Barbie. In almost every way this book sits at 180 degrees from the earlier four volumes of the Sandman series--although the less it seems to belong to the series, the more it shows its heart. --Jim Pascoe
What if the dreams of your youth affected the rest of your life? I love the Sandman series so far and this book was no exception. Gaiman has a way of telling dark stories that are very creative and really expand your mind and make you think.
Barbie's best friends are a drag queen named Wanda and two lesbians that live in her apartment building. Barbie seems to be dragging a bit because she never dreams. She remembers dreaming as a child; wonderful vivid dreams, but those times are long past. When a creature from her dreams dies in front of her on the street and gives her a treasure, Barbie lapses in to a permanent dream state that leads her back to her childhood dream-land where she is a princess and must save the dream land from the Cuckoo. Barbie's friends walk the path of the moon in a effort to save her. In the end nothing is quite as it seems and Barbie's friends' efforts may have put the real world at risk.
The artwork in these books is great. The story is amazing. You really feel for all of the characters and relate with them. The plot pulls you through as you wonder what the next page will bring. Full of creative ideas, intriguing thoughts, creative worlds, and of course the God of Dreams; this was another amazing installment to the Sandman series. I love these stories; they always open your mind to new possibilities and wonders. Not to mention that in general the stories are just well told with a deep mythos behind them.
I look forward to reading the next Sandman Volume.
Now I See The last three volumes of The Sandman have completely outdone what came before. I thought there were glimmers of a good story in the first two volumes, but the storytelling itself was so clunky and unfocused that it was hard to find what really made me keep reading. Well, I'm glad I did, because the fifth volume, "A Game of You," is easily the best written installment so far.
While the Sandman himself hardly appears in this volume, I didn't find that frustrating at all. By this point, Gaiman has begun to write from character, and that really helps the story move forward in unpredictable and fantastic ways. It's about a girl who dreams herself into a fantasy realm that is endangered by the Cuckoo, who sends agents into the real world to have her and her friends killed. The story alternates between New York and The Land, and it's so innovative and just so well done that you won't even wonder where Morpheus is.
Not only is this the best story so far, it also functions in tying the previous volumes together in a way I didn't predict. The main character is Barbie, who was part of the preppy couple Barbie and Ken in Vol. 2: The Doll's House. Also, Foxglove is actually the lover of the lesbian woman at the diner from Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes. It's all a very tight story, and in some ways is a (much better) sequel to "The Doll's House."
Now I see what people were talking about when they gushed about this series.
9/10
Another solid addition to the Sandman mythos The fifth Sandman collection sees Gaiman tackle the traditional fantasy/fairy tale 'quest' story. This is an interesting tale, one of the most traditionally-structured in the series, and once again makes use of the history already established in the series whilst setting up elements for use in future stories.
Barbie, the young woman who was one of Rose Walker's housemates in The Doll's House, has relocated to New York City and now lives in an apartment block. Other residents of the block include a transsexual named Wanda, a lesbian couple named Hazel and Foxglove, a bookish young woman named Thessaly and a surly man named George. Since the events of The Doll's House Barbie has been unable to dream and in her absence the dream-kingdom she used to inhabit, the Land, has been overrun by an evil force known as 'the Cuckoo'. Only a few of Barbie's imaginary friends have survived, and using powerful magic one of these, a giant dog named Martin Tenbones, crosses over into the real world to enlist her aid in saving them.
A Game of You is, by some reports, the least popular of the Sandman tales. I'm not sure why that is the case, although Dream spending much more time off-page than normal (only really active at the beginning and end) may have something to do with it. The mix of high fantasy with harsh reality may have something more to do with it, and the somewhat bemused-rather-than-scared-into-catatonia reactions of the other residents of the apartment block to one of their number cutting off someone's face and pinning it to the wall strains credulity somewhat. But Gaiman again gives us an interesting, intricately-crafted story featuring some very well-realised characters and some fascinating fantasy concepts. A lengthy essay by Samual R. Delaney opens this collection in which he discusses some of the ideas and themes presented, and is an interesting read. A Game of You is, at its heart, a story about identity, about what people want to be versus the sometimes harsh reality of who they actually are, and about the role that fantasy plays in people's lives.
A Game of You (****) is another solid addition to the Sandman mythos, with a strong storyline and some interesting thematic elements making up for a slightly unsatisfying ending and a distinct lack of appearances by the Sandman. It is available from Titan in the UK and Vertigo in the USA, and is part of The Absolute Sandman, Volume II, available from Vertigo in the UK and USA.
Graphic SF Reader A messed up girl named Barbie has created a dream world with some serious problems. After blocking this out of a mind for her time, and not dreaming, eventually her dream world gets to her.
This drags in her friends and neighbours, who happen to include an immortal witch, and an agent of her dream foe.
Through a drawing down the moon ritual, the women involved enter the dream world to try and rectify things and find Barbie.
Needless to say, Morpheus is not at all amused, when he finally has to act.
This part really has little to do with the Endless.
Not your grandad's comic book . . . This is one my two favorites in the 11-volume "Sandman" series, which has proven Gaiman to be a genius storyteller. I think I like this one especially because it's a full-length continuing story, not a collection of short pieces, and because the characters are terrific (all of them are just ordinary people, including the witch and the princess), and also because Gaiman is a master of poetic dialogue. The story begins in a New York tenement for mostly women, all of them genuine characters, and several of them with connections to characters in earlier volumes. Then Barbie -- Princess Barbara -- is threatened and three of her friends set off on the Moon Road to help her. But Barbie is on a quest of her own, to seek out and defeat the Cuckoo, through a land of her own dreams and imaginings. The Endless are actually rather minor characters this time, but the story doesn't suffer for it.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
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